We're first going to examine some key components within on-boarding our new employees. Communication is definitely key. As many of us have been on the other side, we know that we want to know what's going on, what time do we have to be there? What do we have to wear? What do we have to bring with us? Just keep those things in mind. If you were that new hire, what is it that you would like to see? Be up front on those communication pieces. We expect our new hires to arrive at 8:30 in the morning. A lot of my new hires right now are laboratory, so we have some requirements there. Then we ask them to bring documentation for the I9 form. That's usually it. I do always make sure I'm copying the hiring manager so that they're aware and they know what time as well. Generally speaking, before we get to that point, I do send them an email and say, "Hey, are you okay with 8:30 or do you want a different time?" Certainly, we also give the employee that's starting, that flexibility too. If you need to get your kids to school or you have other things going on, we need to be cognizant of that. As far as IT and other set-up, we want to make sure that we're good to go. We want to make sure that they're walking into something that's happy and healthy and set up for them. Right now with COVID and being remote, this adds a little bit of a different layer in that we're setting up an IT meeting ahead of time. Before they start, I send a calendar invitation to them to invite them to an IT session. I do send that to their personal email address with the phone number. That's just so IT, they know what phone number to call IT onto get them set up. That's right now. That's not necessarily how it's worked in the past and we'll have to see what happens with our workspaces and workstations as we move forward. But we want to make everybody feel comfortable and we want to give them all of the information. Generally, to provide them with a full itinerary so that they know what to expect and when. Also, copying the manager on this. As far as what works well, there may be specific components that you do within your organization or that you need. For example, obviously, a lot of my inner laboratory settings. We need to do special trainings for that for safety trainings, and we also want to do a full tour so that they understand where everything is. The laboratory is a rather large space and so that just gives them peace of mind. Then how can we evolve to meet current needs? I've talked a ton about COVID and how this has impacted our workplace and workspaces. This is just one of those examples. In a prior company during COVID when we didn't have to worry about laboratory on-site employees, that orientation schedule was done completely remotely. As we know, a lot of folks within the current working environment, they're also looking for remote work and being able to stay at home. As we move with those tendencies, we want to be able to evolve what we're doing with these new hire practices to meet those new demands and those new needs. As we walked through the new hire orientation process, we need to examine what those components of a successful Orientation Program are. I can't tell you how many times both students and other companies have handed in an orientation that exists the first day of employment, maybe only the first morning, and then they're done. The flip side too is that I can't tell you how many times my hiring managers have been like, "Okay, it's their second day, they're done. Here's all this stuff I need you to do." That's not successful and that's not going to make someone happy and that's not going to keep them there long term. I want to make sure that all of us, as we're going through this process and looking at a new hire orientation, we examine that and we get that beyond the first day. You're not just done situated after day 1. We want to see measurable check-ins. Possibly 30-60-90 check-ins, even if it's just quarterly check-ins or monthly check-ins, but we also want to add an additional one at the one-year mark. This is a successful assimilation. This is where we're making sure they're happy, they have everything that they need and any questions that they have are being answered. When I ask who's involved in that process, it shouldn't just be the Hiring Manager, but there should be education from HR to the Hiring Manager to explain that orientation extends beyond day 1 or even after doing one. You may have other components involved. Maybe you have a mentorship or a Buddy Program. That would be brilliant. Then in that case you would get that individual involved with them and then how do you track that orientation process and progress? What you'd want to be able to do is say after the three-month, six-month, and maybe one-year mark is actually surveyed or get the feedback and the input from your new hire. Additionally, if you have a mentorship or buddy program, you would also be able to get the feedback from that person. That would give you awesome feedback on multiple fronts as far as how it went, how that they feel that assimilation was, and then also what their favorite parts were, and then what they would look to change or areas that we can improve upon, and then again, we have to kind of cover how we transition this to a remote process. I think even if we're looking at a mentorship or buddy program, that is an easy program to be able to transfer online, so they maybe can't go get a lunch or go get a cup of coffee but they certainly can have a coffee remote or set up Zoom meetings or similar to be able to check in with each other. We want to kind of be able to assess and pull this out on different levels. Employee Retention is just as it sound. This is where we're retaining the employees that we have, they're not leaving us after six months or a year or 18 months, whatever it might be and they're choosing to stay with us because they're happy. One of the surveys that SHRM has done is employee job satisfaction and engagement survey. This is where they're asking folks why it is they're satisfied in their job, what it is that makes them happy. Here you can see the five items that came in at the top of that survey. Obviously, number one is going to be respectful treatment of employees at all level. This is giving everyone the same care or the same concern and really kind of a voice and treating everyone with that equal respect. Compensation obviously, we knew this was going to be on here, nobody goes to work just for fun. Generally speaking they're all there to be able to support themselves and their family. Trust between employees and senior management. This is key and oftentimes what we see along with this is a level of transparency. They're trusting their senior managers and they feel that they have that transparency there as well. Job security. Obviously in times of turmoil and thing like that, employees are going to start looking elsewhere. In my world of biotech, generally speaking, the companies come and go like you wouldn't believe. It's a drastic rollercoaster of sorts, laying off, you know, several hundred one day and then hiring even more than that. This comes and goes and we also see a lot of mergers and things within our business, so that job security is absolutely apparent. What would happen is when we're getting maybe bad news or something from the FDA or we've gotten a non-response letter, whatever that might be, the employees know that they're writings on the wall a little bit and so oftentimes they start looking on their own. As I've recruited for folks in biotech, this is generally the answer to why is that you're looking to leave or exploring other opportunities. This is the one answer that I got, I would say eight times out of ten is that they know they're changes going on at their current organization and they want to be able to get a leg up at the door prior to the door being shock on them. Then finally, opportunities to use their skills and abilities at work. This is where folks are feeling valued and being able to contribute. This is where we see engagement. This is just the leading contributions that we got from that SHRM satisfaction survey. But it gives you insight into what most folks would see or what say, and in turn, you could also ask yourself if you're happy at your job. What aspect or aspects are there that makes you so. As we walk through the components of retention, we have to cover diversity and inclusion. Again, we want a diverse team, a diverse workforce where everybody has something special or different that they're bringing to the table. Then that inclusion piece, that's where we're giving them that sense of ownership, that's where they get a say so and they're able to make an impact and make a difference. That does dovetail into generational differences. Some of our older generations are not as understanding of the younger generations wanting to have an impact, wanting to have a say so and I'm going through a situation now where the sentiment by leaders that have been around for quite a while are of the mindset of we shouldn't talk about these things at work, that shouldn't be covered at work, and that's not at all the feeling and the sentiment that my more junior workers are coming in with. That's not what they want and that's not what they want to see. They want to be able to work for an organization that deals with these things, that talks about these things. It's okay to talk about Black Lives Matter, it's okay to talk about other things that are going on. Those are things that we need to be able to address and those that can be done through education, but on both parts so that everybody understands why that sense and that feeling is the way it is within that generation. It's just how everyone has grown up or are transformed and the different things that they've seen throughout the years, and how that impacts their ability and their sense of work. We also obviously will bring COVID back into this. This has a drastic impact on the workplace. I don't think we're done seeing that transformation yet. As a lot of offices go back to working back into the office five days a week, I think we're going to see a lot of shifting. We already have a lot of shifting on the recruiting front because they are not willing to come back in five days a week. It is the first question that happens on almost every interview right now. How can we keep our employees happy? How can we provide them with a sense of ownership and that inclusion component? As far as implementing an employee retention program and different things that you can do, before you start, do your homework, be prepared, this is just like when we were talking about the job description. Do your homework, get everything prepped before you try to roll anything out. You can do internal as well as external bench-marking. Super easy to do a SurveyMonkey to get folks input; A it gives them a sense of belonging, of inclusion, and then B, this gives you the information; what are they looking for; what would they like to see; and what would make them happy. Then external bench-marking, you don't need to do anything crazy with this. This can be as easy as reading a new article or updating trends or things maybe [inaudible] puts out items like this all the time, different news sources and things to do as well, and a lot of times there's different seminars or webinars that you can attend in this very spot. You can't do this alone though, you really do have to have management on your side, you can't push the boulder up the mountain. Having them on your side is key and probably one of the early things you want to do after you come up with a plan and some set suggestions and ideas. Ideally, this would tie into the mission vision values. We've gone back to that in every single module because those are the trends; those are the similarities that drive everything in; that drive everything home. One of the best examples I have is one of my past students that worked for Vans sneakers. I know they do other things but let's go with sneakers for now. For Vans, on the bottom of the shoe, they have a waffle pattern and this is representative of something within the organization and I can't remember that off the top my head, but what they do is they carry that through everything that they do for their on-boarding process, through their employee retention, through the different bonuses and awards that they give out to their employees, and one item that sticks out for me, is that for their new hire on-boarding, they do a waffle breakfast because obviously that waffle pattern is what's on their shoe and the new hires actually make waffles and come up with creative toppings and things to include with the waffles to serve the staff that have been there for a long time, and even to rotate those staff in and out. I just think it's tremendous because it carries that culture; it carries their messaging; it carries their company branding through everything that they do and it was just an awesome example and he was one of my best examples because he had been with them for so long. At the time of his taking my class, he was already with them for like 11 or 12 years. Just think about that, that speaks in volumes in this day and age. The next item on here is communication. Again, this is going to tie back through to everything. We want to communicate, we want to communicate transparently and just provide them as much detailed information as we possibly can. Then audit and evaluate the programs that we're putting in place. In the next slide, we're going to talk about some examples. Whatever example it is you choose or whatever program, audit it. See how you can make it better; maybe it's a great assess or maybe it's a program that we end up scrapping. But this is something that helps us keep current, to keep on trend, and then make sure that we're still keeping our employees happy. As we go over some of the examples within retention, this is just a sampling. By no means, there's tons of things out there and I would encourage you to get creative with it every step of the way, wherever you can. But I wanted to go over some of the focal areas. The first one is recruitment. In this space, what we really want to see is honesty and transparency within the job interview process. We want those folks being boarded to know what they're getting into and to be happy with it and okay with it. I had an example not too long ago, where an individual was hired and he was never even given the job description. He had applied for it through a friend, boarded, and then several months later went to the supervisor because he wasn't happy and he wanted to leave. These are things that could have been avoided and so just one important area in that respect. As far socialization, there's tons of things you can do. Zoom right now is where it's at because that's all we can do, but as that moves and as that trend towards back to a more social time, at least in-person there's tons of things we can do. One of the most successful things that I've done with several groups and employers at this point is to serve local community organizations such as food banks. I've done a ton of work with local food banks, it gives back to your local community, it's great work and it's really only a few hours off of your working time. When we look at training and development, this is such a huge area for employees when they say they're not getting what they need from their employers. This is something where we really want to pay attention to. Maybe that's a tuition reimbursement program. Maybe that's allowing them to go to seminars or conferences or maybe just flexibility for attending night classes or different things like that. Compensation obviously is going to be at the top of our list, all the time. We know these components pay possibly bonus, maybe it's a sign-on bonus, maybe it's an annual bonus and when I talk about equity, I'm talking about stock or maybe some other equity within the organization. First supervision, when we talk about management style, most folks are not happy with micromanagement. We want to be sure that we're educating our supervisors and our leaders so that they're leaving that door open for those employees to do their work, to give them the autonomy and to make them happy. Finally engagement, so this is where we're rewarding and talking about their contributions, we're allowing them to have a say, we're allowing them to feel valued and to feel like they're contributing to the larger picture. Culture and retention go hand in hand. If you have a good company culture, you're going to retain your folks. If you have a poor company culture, you're going to be losing your folks on a regular basis. How do we define that company culture? Who's involved in it? How do we practice it? How do we protect it? Then how do we edit or change it? My best example for you is I was with a company for a very long time, my longest ever and we went through a transformation where we got a new president, which drastically altered the company and the company culture. We did a huge lay off, it was about 90 percent of stuff and then had to redesign and start to rebuild out the new culture. There was a definite difference between how things were handled, in the old regime, so to speak, and then the new regime. This isn't to say one is negative or one is positive. It's just for me, it wasn't what I was comfortable with and what I was used to which was my culture prior to that transition for over 10 years, so how do we protect that? How do we grow these things? A lot of times too when we talk about culture within an organization, we are wanting to protect it. As we go through large periods of growth, it's really important to be able to try to protect how we got here and what it was that made that successful. But also we need to be able to include those new folks being added in. How can we protract it yet, engage with our new folks to grow into where this company is going? We see this a lot enlarge growth spurts within organizations. The flip side of that is that we see that within declines as well. It's really about working with your leaders and making sure everyone's on the same page and really identifying what it is that makes your organization unique and what it is that people love about it. Whether that's a simple survey talking to your employees, or maybe it's an organization like in my case where you are there for a very long time and it was just inherent and you knew what that culture was like, so how do you protect that? How do you help foster that growth and develop that? I think that we talk about the growth and development portion a lot now with the changes that COVID has provided to our workforce, and we can't ignore those. I've told you guys a million times at this point that the folks every interview question. The first one is, can I want to be remote, versus my current leader, which is we don't want to be remote, we want you in the office. How can we possibly move forward? What is it that we can do to transition? How can we keep that company culture, how can we keep folks happy, but how can we address these new tendencies and trends, and how that impacts? Certainly, if we can't come up with that resolution to make folks happy, we definitely will see a trend of folks leaving, because it's not just the folks that we're interviewing that want to be remote, we also have some folks currently on staff that obviously want to remain remote. How do we address that? How do we protect that? Hopefully how do we come to a middle ground where everybody is happy within that process? For our last slide, I wanted to really go through the talent lifecycle process and everything that we've touched on throughout the four modules. I think it's important to be able to see it together so that you understand how many components you've actually gone through within this process. Obviously, we've talked about mission, vision values a lot. I gave you that warning when we started back in Module 1. We then went into the requisition, so that's where we're gaining people's insight and really approvals. Is finance signing off on this position? Is it in the budget or the manager's, and maybe department vice presidents also signing off. We then wrote the job description, and we want to pass that job description back over to those managers and those leaders as well to make sure everybody's on the same page. For recruiting methods, we talked about a bunch of different options. When I talk about AI, that's artificial intelligence, that's where we we're looping in different programs and platforms that do a lot of that heavy lifting, or that initial resume sorting for you that then triggers into the resume review. This is when we're looking over those resumes, highlighting the items we want to see, and then selecting our top candidates to go into our interview process. This is one of the areas where we focused on diversity and inclusion as far as being sure that the metrics and things that we were doing and using were universal across the board, and then that interview panel that we chose, that they were diverse as well. As far as applicant testing, this is something that we talked about across a bunch of different levels and fields, from doing a Myers-Briggs personality test all the way through a very specific job skill test. The example that we had talked about was one that I had done, which was basically a communication skill task, where we hired the individual that did the notifications on Twitter, and Facebook, and Instagram, and successfully so. I told you guys that I'll tell you again, the leveling within where we had the candidates listed prior to that testing versus when it was done, was completely different, so it was definitely an eye opener from that standpoint. We then went into background and reference checks. You don't necessarily have to do both, this is going to be an organizational decision. Background is definitely suggested, but through a vendor that does this and will do this appropriately within your local, state and federal guidelines. Offer letter and new hire documents. This was most recent, where we went into the components within an offer letter, and then what we were going to submit possibly to the new hire along with that offer, and then that dovetailed into our on-boarding process. How do we see our new-hire orientation, what are the components of that program? Then finally retention, this is where we're pulling it all back together. If those employees are happy as they're boarding and we're transparent, we get to keep them and then we don't have to go through this process again unneedingly so. We talked about the organizational culture, how that ties into this process and this recruitment process. If you're upfront and transparent with that throughout, if you're living the mission vision values, your new hires are going to know exactly what they're getting into, they're going to be happy about that choice, and they're going to stay with you. Then finally those generational differences and again, diversity and inclusion. How we're making you part of the process, how everyone's voice is heard, and what we can do to really strengthen those relationships and those bonds.
